Thorley Virginia
University of Queensland.
Health History. 2008;10(1):88-109.
Wet nursing and cross-nursing both involve the breastfeeding of a baby by someone who is not the baby's mother. They differ in that wet nurses were usually employees in paid situations and the breastfeeding was not reciprocated, whereas cross-nursing was between peers and was usually unpaid and could be reciprocal. In Australia at the turn of the twentieth century wet nurses were employed in private homes or institutions. By the 1920s, finding a wet nurse had become extremely difficult, but informal cross-feeding existed long after this. This study examines both practices in twentieth century Australia, 1900-2000, and includes a discussion of the decline of human milk banks, another means of sharing mothers' milk.
奶妈喂养和交叉哺乳都涉及由非婴儿母亲的人来进行母乳喂养。它们的不同之处在于，奶妈通常受雇于有报酬的情况下，且母乳喂养没有得到回报，而交叉哺乳是在同龄人之间进行，通常没有报酬且可能是相互的。在20世纪之交的澳大利亚，奶妈受雇于私人家庭或机构。到了20世纪20年代，找到奶妈变得极其困难，但这种非正式的交叉喂养在此之后很长时间仍然存在。本研究考察了20世纪（1900 - 2000年）澳大利亚的这两种做法，还包括对母乳库衰落的讨论，母乳库是另一种分享母乳的方式。
